Some confusion, I see. The 'Distance to ...' is the actual distance to the celestial object, in Astrological Units. The column is
there to help astronomers calculate orbits and such, and because I'm too lazy to edit it out of the table.

Distance travelled: it depends on the camera lens, etc, etc, etc.

You can tell from the tables that Venus was moving down about 12 degtrees/hour or 0.2 degree/minute, and sideways about 9 degrees/hour, 0.15
degree/minute. That's a combined rate of 15 d/h, 0.25 d/m. The full moon is 0.5 degrees wide, so Venus was zipping along at 1/2 Full Moon per
minute.

Plug the figures into a triangle calculator (good link: ostermiller.org..., saves me hours of regretting I'd paid
more attention in trig class) and you get an angle of around 37 degrees down and to the right.

Let's look at couple of your screen caps with the brightness cranked up:

and then superimposed with the trees aligned:

The Nexrad viewer:

Did you get the Java viewer running? If not, you may need to download and install the Java JRE. There's no direct link, you'll have to go here:java.sun.com...
then click 'Download J2SE JRE', accept the license and pick the version for your OS.
Running Windoze? After you reboot or whatever, go back to www.ncdc.noaa.gov...
and try it again.

Once the viewer is running, order your data (or, you may have some already). When the email comes, download the contents of that directory to a local
folder like C:\MyDocuments\Nexrad\2005-07-27\
On the Nexrad Data Selector window click 'Local' 'Browse Local' Navigate to your data folder. You should now see a folder name in the little
window, but nothing may appear in the big window yet ( that threw me off); if not, hit 'Open'.

You should now see a list of files. Double click one, and you should get a radar map.

One other hint: I found the viewer really wants to finish what it's doing before you change anything. Give it time for the progress bar to stop
before clicking the next option.

Another great tool! www.wunderground.com...
Go there and you can get sky maps for your zip-code for just about any date. Here's three maps for your general area on 2005-07-27. I'm not sure
of copyright issues here, so I'll just post the links rather than the images themselves:
8:00pm
9:00pm
10:00pm

Now, I have the flu, and I begged off work, so I can't enjoy myself anymore, at least until the NyQuil wears off, so I'm headed back to bed.

rand, sorry to hear you are down with the flu...im in a similar boat with a respiratory infection of some sort..blah...anyway, thanks for the detailed
instructions for the ncdc site. the wunderground site is also a very useful tool. however, the date of the 2nd sighting video (tripod) was aug 4th.
using the wunderground site, at 8pm venus is just on the edge of the horizon, while at 9pm it is gone. i am still confused on the speed calculation
and the whole half moon per minute distance. the distance traveled in 1 min seems to be much further than 1/2 moon. also, were you able to find out
if 16mi of cloudcover would make venus visible? the cloudcover went as far as the eye could see...the object sure looked like it was underneath.. i
would also like your opinion of the pictures. would a planet look like that in a photo. i dont believe it would...what do you think??? another
possibility...maybe langley afb was conducting test flights for whatever aircraft and used the venus/jupiter closeness as cover?? however the venus
trajectory seems to be very very similar..did you have a chance to view the actual video of the 27th yet? im telling you rand...this thing sure seemed
to be under the clouds...cant wait to hear back

I'm dropping minutes(") and seconds(') from the calculations because I'm lazy and because, with all the other variables, it won't affect the
calculations much. Anyone who wants can use more precise computations. There's a very good coordinate translator at jeeep.com...
which can be used to convert degrees-minutes-seconds to decimal degrees to make the math easier.

It's hard enough to visualize what 1 degree looks like in the sky, much less 0.23 degrees, so I related it to the Full Moon, which is 0.5 degrees
wide. Venus was moving 0.23/0.5 = (about) 0.5, or half the width of the full moon per minute.

You can use the triangle calculator to figure the cloud deck from you position, too. This time you've got 18 miles, 90 degrees, 3 miles: plug it in
and see what you get.

I have myself seen Venus through a light cloud cover; it's kinda freaky with binoculars.

You may have something on the still photos, the first one shows something substatntial but it's impossible to tell what. Is that a shadow, for
instance, or just a JPEG artifact?

Also, remember that in addition to Norfolk International, you have Oceana NAS, Hampton Roads, Chesapeak Regional, Fentress NAS Aux, Norfolk Naval
Station, and possibly a few others, all within about 20 miles and all rerouting traffic around the storms. Then there's the 6 or so heliports, the
10+ hospitals and trauma centers, etc., etc.

This is as far as I can let myself go with this sighting, I'm afraid. I'm always happy to help when I can, but I have a lot of research myself to
complete. You have the tools available to investigate the sightings as detailed as you want; good luck with it.

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